Fleeting Despair
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Penny worries about her career and chances for success.


What happened? Did it all peter out? Where is your oomph? Stuck alone in your sad little world, so happy you were never a brightly shining child star so that the world at large could poke fun at your current state of stale failure. Or stasis. Or whatever this ennui could be called.

What are you doing? Never getting anywhere, and although it feels a bit trite you think of the hamster on the wheel, going nowhere. Where are you going? Does everything you dream of depend upon the world to give it to you? Does the world even work that way? Is there some sort of font within you that you are required to draw from, to gain sustenance from? Why does it feel as though it is empty, barren, a desert of a font with the cracks showing? Are there even any droplets you could desperately lick?

You drink coffee thinking that it will give you that kick you require, that little burst of energy so that you can accomplish some things in the dwindling time you have left, but it doesn't work. You only feel a fleeting sort of energy and then it dries up again, and you are left feeling drowsy and out of ideas. Wasn't some kind of success all but guaranteed in your fleeting and misspent youth? What did you think would change that would allow you to blossom into some sort of success? Then, as now, you are lazy and can't muster up the enthusiasm for any creative endeavor. Now, unlike then, you have come to fear the evil that is ready to explode in the world, so what do these petty dreams of yours matter in the face of that?

Depression is a real thing, cloying, covering you like a thick blanket, and coffee and dreams aren't enough to keep it at bay. You could drown in it if you let yourself. No one knows how hard it is for you to get out of bed in the morning and to complete the simple tasks of everyday living. No one knows that you are a hero for washing the dishes and cooking spaghetti, no one knows how hard it is to sometimes just move. The supermarkets are filled with sinister faces, people ready to sneer at you. You move among them gingerly, not looking at anyone for too long.

Sometimes you have lost the very thread of the things you want. What is it you want anymore? What can get you off the couch, the comforting stream of 80's flicks washing over you? If only you could go back to that time when you believed.

Nothing can make you believe anymore. You have lost your faith in everything. Your face can only mimic the normal expressions and emotions of everyone else. Nothing is turning out like you hoped, and it is your own fault. You do nothing, you follow nothing through. Everyone can start a million times, it isn't that at all. How many can finish? Will you ever join their ranks?

It is crashing and burning in a way you can not even fathom. Everything feels as though it is disintegrating, little strings of molecules that will just get washed away in a strong rain. Will you even care when they go?

The sun is dim in the sky, and you feel glued to this couch, glued to this sadness. Maybe you aren't depressed, just sad and confused. Lost. Maybe hope has finally turned to despair. Or denial. Or delusion. Maybe talent isn't even real. No one can see it, can they? Do you have it or not, and who can tell you? Who is judge and jury here? The casting directors? The agents, the talent scouts? What are they looking for and do you have it, or are you destined to waitress for the next untold amount of years until you drop dead?

If you had the crystal ball would you peer into your future? Sometimes you watch the sad interviews of Corey Haim, knowing how the story will end even though he doesn't, knowing that when he says that he has quit drugs at 17 that it is a lie, but is he lying? Maybe he was telling the truth of that moment, he had quit, he was going to try to get better acting roles, but you know it will just suck him in again.

What will suck you in? The lack of energy and the despair, or will you rise above and succeed in something? Will you be able to give a triumphant interview about the lean years and the hopeless days of this time, basking in the palpable glow of your success?


End file.
